by Affan das Hudfor, Monstruwacan
*Possibly Dangerous Data -- For Distribution to Members of the Monstruwacan Order Only*
Dated the 9,235,089th year of the Great Redoubt
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We are told that the event caused " a mist and confusion and rain upon the world", and "a great mist lay upon the earth for many days, and there was a mighty rain" - but this seems like quite an understatement. It seems unavoidable that an explosion of that size would horribly damage the Earth's climate system and lead to a catastrophic extinction. In fact, it is rather surprising that complex life survived.
Afterwards, the explosion left a massive valley 100 miles deep, bent in an L shape with each arm 1,000 miles long. As the sun began to die and the surface of the earth became cold and lost its air, the valley became habitable. We are told that there were forests, and that "beasts strange and awesome" lived in it. It is also implied that the tropical and volcanic climate caused creatures to evolve similar to those in prehistoric times.
Later, the Road Maker culture encountered "Monsters and Evil Things" that prevented them from continuing. The scientists of this culture then performed strange experiments which allowed evil and alien beings to reach the Earth and occupy it. The sun continued to die, and there were "strange consortings" with those alien creatures, forming worse monsters. (This is almost certainly a myth of an unscientific age; hybridization between humans and non-solid alien creatures is fundamentally impossible and biologically laughable.)
The Great Redoubt was built to shelter man from the monsters and the evil, alien forces let in by the experiments. As the sun's dying continued, the Watchers appeared and besieged our Great Redoubt. There were apparently large flying creatures in the Night Land at one point, but as the air thinned, they either died out or moved to lower elevations in the Country of Seas and Volcanoes reported by Naani and her rescuer in a famous report. Whatever is to be said of its value as a tale of heroism, that report is sadly lacking in scientific detail. I suggest further exploration into the Land to retrieve biological specimens.
The creatures encountered by explorers in the Land can be divided into five categories.
So, what conclusions can be drawn from this?
Thus, it seems clear that the mass extinction wiped out all but the toughest vertebrates. Rats survived easily, and the Night Hounds could be descended either from the extinct dog once kept by humans or the exceptionally tough, omnivorous coyote of those times. The bird-creature is probably a giant descendant of corvids (crows and jays); these were highly adaptable birds, and the large, pointed beak seems to fit corvids better than other adaptable birds known from ancient records or fossils. Snakes could have survived in burrows and by feeding off the rats and arthropods which endured.
The niches emptied by extinction of most vertebrates allowed invertebrates to increase in size and diversity. The scorpions seen in fire-holes and elsewhere on the Great Slope are smaller than some of prehistoric times, such as the Carboniferous Brontoscorpio; the spider-crabs are likewise a comprehensible size. The Yellow Thing is not clearly given a size, but it is far larger than a human. While much of this may be attributed to long legs, the creature is still more massive than a human. This seems to stretch possibility, especially in the thin atmosphere of the Night, since arthropod breathing is inefficient at large sizes; but perhaps the Yellow Thing has more efficient breathing than smaller arthropods and uses little oxygen while waiting in ambush.
The six limbs can be explained as a mutation - such mutations do occur - but it would normally be harmful. Interestingly, it seems that the Four-armed Man uses the two pairs of arms differently; perhaps one pair is weaker.
It seems that something about the unusual environment made this normally detrimental mutation an advantage. Perhaps it was able to intimidate predators more easily? Possibly another mutation occurred, allowing it to use both pairs of arms together.
Alternately, it is possible that the single Four-armed Man encountered was a freak of nature - perhaps even a detrimental condition - and that a normal, two-armed creature of that type would have been an even more terrible threat.
From fossils and old records, it seems clear that the hominids have diversified greatly in only a few million years - short, in evolutionary terms. There must be a mutagen affecting the area; this would make the mutations involved far more likely, as well as making the evolution of such things as the Grey Man plausible in the relatively short time frame. This mutagen could come from nuclear or chemical pollution of ancient times. However, I think it is far more likely that the presence of the immaterial/spiritual Outer beings induces mutations, especially if, as I and many others believe, they are essentially a thin plasma - highly charged. Thus, perhaps the Evil Forces emit electromagnetic radiation!
As for diet, it's not clear that the Four-Armed Man lives off blood alone. Its mouth is somewhat specialized, but it would likely be capable of biting off small pieces of flesh or sucking the meat and ichor out of a large invertebrate such as a scorpion as well. When there are no hapless adventurers from the Redoubt around, it probably preys upon the smaller, weaker hominids and the abundant invertebrates as well as rats and serpents. The Four-Armed Man probably fills a similar niche in the fire-hole ecology as lions or leopards did in Africa in the age of the Sun; preying on large animals when available but willing to eat almost anything. (The Four-Armed Man seems to be very strong; while most of the "ab-human" hominids are stronger than normal humans, the report of Naani's rescuer describes the Four-Armed man as being as strong compared to him as a horse is to a normal man; and he was a very strong man according to tales.)
The Giant Slugs: While the meager descriptions at my disposal don't give sizes, it is clear that these creatures are very large - they seem to weigh tons.
There is still great controversy over the means a land invertebrate uses to support its weight at such sizes. Some claim an internally pressurized gas bag, but I subscribe to the "rigid shell" hypothesis.
The slugs are probably not true slugs, but evolved from snails; they must have developed an internal support structure from their shell. This would be equivalent to the exoskeleton of an insect, but heavier, approaching the form of armor covered only by the shiny mantle flesh. See figure below. (The "blotches" seen by certain travelers are probably spots where the slug's motion has made its flesh thinner, and thus the shell inside can be seen.)
The respiration would be a further problem, but fairly efficient lungs of some type seem required.
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Vaporous Types: From the few specimens we have obtained, these are clearly true biological organisms, but of a dramatically different type from any other -- an innovation at least as great as the development of eukaryote cells, but one that occurred in the very recent geologic past -- during what are informally called the "Days of the Darkening", in the Late Wandering or
Early Redoubt periods, c. 10 million years ago.
They are composed of very minute prokaryotic cells, small enough to remain suspended in air. However, they have a great innovation in the form of link-strands, long (on a microscopic scale: up to 150 microns) but exceptionally thin (less than 15 nanometers) filaments that can be used to connect these bacteria and transport certain molecules -- including those which act as chemical signals. This allows the entire 'mist-cloud' to function in certain ways as a single organism. Even certain genetic processes are shared: full genomic DNA molecules are too large to pass through the link-strands, but methyl radicals can be passed to allow coordinated methylation of genes. Even very small (5-10 base pair) RNA units can be moved between cells.
Some of the largest of these colonies/organisms, over 100 cubic meters and 1000 kilograms wet weight (thus a density of about 1% that of a standard organism), may have a level of organization analogous to neural activity in animals, giving them the equivalent 'intelligence' of an insect.
The Watchers: These are clearly living organisms, but they have a lifespan of millions of years, move at the speed of slow glaciers, and are many times larger than the biggest animals in the fossil record - the sauropod dinosaurs of the Mesozoic and the whales of the Cenozoic. This seems very odd on the surface, since our own Thanatozoic has far less biological productivity than those past eras.
They are probably some sort of fungus or plant rather than true animals. They grow to such large sizes that the closest analogue would be "clonal colonies" like those of aspen trees or some fungi.
But essentially the closest analogue is a lichen. Just as a lichen is a symbiosis of fungus and alga that acts as one organism, a Watcher would be a symbiosis of fungus, various small animals living on and within it, and possibly 'spiritual' creatures also trapped in its weave. It may even trap humans and use them as part of its network...
This "lichen hypothesis" is often rejected, but I see no better option. Certainty must wait until a brave adventurer returns to the Redoubt with a sample of Watcher bio-matter.